


Witness

by whatamidoingeven



Category: Persona 4
Genre: Brief Mentions of Nudity, F/F, but nothing explicit, domesticness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-19
Updated: 2015-06-19
Packaged: 2018-04-05 05:05:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,277
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4167033
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whatamidoingeven/pseuds/whatamidoingeven
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes, questions don't come with answers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Witness

Despite it being a Friday night, the Amagi Inn is quiet. Inaba as a whole is too- anyone who would bother to be roaming the streets this late at night is doing so in Okina, or elsewhere. They’ll stumble home in the early hours of the morning, carrying with them half-full bottles and half-empty wallets.

Years ago, Chie would have found the silence stifling, almost- but now, she’s glad for it. It’s one of the few times in her life that isn’t a hectic rush. The silence is calming.

Until a ringing interrupts it.

Chie groans, unwraps her arms from around her wife, and rolls onto her side to retrieve her phone. Yukiko stirs a bit, but doesn’t show signs of waking.

“H-hello?” Chie answers, groggily.

“Satonaka,” the unmistakable voice of Dojima booms through the phone’s speaker, “we need you at the station as soon as possible.”

“Of course, but what for?”

“You know that case we’ve been on for months? The smuggling ring?”

“Yeah?”

“We’ve got a break on ‘em, and we can bust ‘em, but it’s gotta happen tonight. So stop asking questions and get your ass down here!”

Chie winces as the sound of disconnection fills her ears. She sighs as she puts the phone down and starts searching for her clothes in the dark.

“You have to go?” it’s a sleepy voice, and Chie barely hears it over the noise of her shuffling through shirts.

“Huh? Oh, yeah. We’ve got a break on a big case.”

Yukiko makes a small, affirmative sound. “Will you be back by the morning?”

“Dunno. I hope so.”

Yukiko’s response is a yawn. Chie finally finishes picking out something decent to wear and shuffles over to her, kissing her gently on the forehead.

Yukiko smiles, takes Chie’s face into her hands, and answers with one on the lips.

“Be safe.”

“Of course. Sweet dreams.”

“I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

In an instant, Chie is out the door, and silence floods the room once more.

* * *

 

“It should be a nice sunrise this morning, at least.”

Chie glances at her phone, and grimaces as it reads 4:30 am.

“I didn’t know the sun rose so early.”

She groans as she sinks further into the car seat and continues to listen to her squadmates banter.

“Man, how long have we been camped in here?”

“I don’t even want to know.”

“You know what sounds good right now?”

Chie thinks of a lot of things that would answer that question. Sleep. A steak. Yukiko. Sleep. Sleep.

No one gets a chance to answer the question before the radio’s static fuzz fills the car.

“The agent has left the building! Go! Go! Go!”

In a heartbeat, the doors of the car are open, and Chie is charging into a house across the street.

Everything about the scene is deafeningly loud.

* * *

 

“I didn’t do anything! Please, you can’t arrest me!”

The man has been yelling for at least 45 minutes, since he was first cuffed.

“That’s bullshit and you know it! We have at least two years’ worth of records of your smuggling and dealing illegal imports.”

“I didn’t know they were illegal! I swear!”

Chie isn’t doing much other than standing and observing, but even she’s getting a little sick of this back and forth Dojima’s been having with the suspect. She tunes out, and picks up on some of her squadmates bantering again.

“Why do suspects fight like this? Don’t they know it’s pointless?”

“Don’t ask me, I’m not a worthless criminal.”

“Probably because they lack common sense. Explains why they’re in this position anyway.”

The bantering stops as soon as the back and forth between Dojima and the suspect quiets, and for a second, it’s completely silent. Chie follows the eyes of the suspect and discovers the reason why.

Atop the staircase stands a little boy. Chie guesses five, but no matter how you age him, he’s a child.

“D-daddy? W-what’s going on? What’s wrong?”

Somehow the man is able to regain a façade. “N-nothing’s wrong! Go back to bed!”

“But-“

“What are you doing up? Wha- what’s going on?!”

A woman, not much older than Chie, is at the top of the staircase now, next to the little boy.

“Love, it’s-it’s not-“

“It’s not what?? What it looks like? What the hell is going on here? Who gave you the right to come into our home?!”

The woman runs down the stairs and is quickly restrained by officers. “What are you doing with my husband?!”

“We have years of documentation saying this man was illegally importing goods and distributing them.”

Chie can’t do anything here- and she wouldn’t know where to start, anyway, so she keeps her post in the entryway and watches.

“Th-they don’t understand! We would’ve gone out of business without this stuff, I- I didn’t know it was illegal! Love, you’ve got to understand!”

The woman tries to fight out of the officers’ holds to no avail. “You’ve made a mistake! M-my husband, he has children to support! Please, you’ve got to let him go!”

Dojima grimaces at that before gesturing to the officers that stand behind the restrained man. They each lift him from the ground and begin to move him out of the room.

“No! Please!”

The woman and the child create a chorus of screams and cries as the man is dragged out of the house.

Chie wishes for silence, more than anything.

* * *

 

“Beautiful sunset, tonight.”  Comments the officer in the passenger’s seat of Chie’s car.

The sky is filled with vibrant colors, but it would have looked beautiful, regardless. Seeing the outside world after hours inside the station filing reports and doing paperwork makes Chie appreciate the natural world, even if only for a moment.

“Do you think we did the right thing?”

The officer looks at Chie. “Well, the guy is in jail now, so I’d say yes.”

“Was he really a bad guy?”

“Amagi-san”

“I’m just asking, is all.”

The officer shakes his head as Chie stops the car next to a small house near the shopping district. “You worry too much, Amagi. Try to get some sleep tonight.”

Chie nods as the officer thanks her for the ride and gets out of the car. After making sure he gets into the house, she heads for the Amagi Inn.

The radio is off. The engine barely even hums.

The silence is more deafening than anything.

* * *

 

“Chie-chan. Welcome back.” Kasai bows as Chie steps into the kitchen from the backdoor of the Inn.

The smell of stale food and the clanging of pots and pans being washed overwhelm her as she quietly greets the woman. “Hey.” 

She doesn’t have to say much else. Kasai smiles in understanding. “She’s in her office. You should tell her to take a break- she’s been at it all day. And eat some of the leftover dinner before you go. You must be starving.”

“Thank you, Kasai-san.”

Chie doesn’t bother to pick up any dinner on her way out, and before long the commotion of the kitchen is replaced by the quiet of her and Yukiko’s private wing at the Inn.

* * *

 

Yukiko is writing something down when Chie slides the door to the makeshift office open.

The room is sparsely decorated, and sometimes Chie wonders if Yukiko is part of its décor.

She doesn’t even look up from her paperwork when Chie moves further into the room. It’s only when Chie wraps her arms around her that Yukiko even responds at all, leaning into the embrace as Chie rests her head on her wife’s shoulder. “Hey.”

“Hey”

They kiss, and when it ends, Yukiko runs her hands through Chie’s hair. Chie closes her eyes, but she can feel another set on her. The form under her arms shifts, and when Chie opens her eyes again, she sees Yukiko’s staring back at her.

“What’s wrong?”

Chie shrugs, but Yukiko doesn’t budge.

“Just a long day.”

Yukiko moves Chie’s bangs out of her face, before responding “Let’s run a bath. Okay?”

Chie nods, “I’ll let you finish up here, and meet you there.”

Yukiko hums in approval, and when Chie leaves, the sound of pen on paper is notably absent.

* * *

 

Chie is already showering off when Yukiko finally makes her way to the bathroom.

“Did you finish everything you needed to?”

“Yes.” Yukiko responds, as she begins to take off her clothes.

Chie is far past the point of bashfulness while being naked around Yukiko, or seeing Yukiko naked (though it did take her longer to reach that point than she would ever admit to anyone.). Maybe she would be uncomfortable if there were people around, but there’s no chance of that in their private bath. Isolation can be comforting.

A shiver runs through her as she steps away from the shower and into the bath, and Yukiko takes over the former.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to dive right in while you were still-“

“It’s fine.” Yukiko cuts her off.

For a while, they stay like that-silent except for the sound of the running water, until Yukiko cuts it off and joins Chie in the bath. The water splashes as Chie shifts to make room for her.

Yukiko settles in behind her and wraps her arms around Chie. Chie relaxes against her.

The tense silence can’t survive when they’re this close to each other.

“I’m not going to make you talk about it if you don’t want to, but it’s obvious something is bothering you.”

Chie dips her finger into the water and watches the ripples before responding, “It’s nothing you have to be worried about.”

“Hm.”

Quiet overtakes them again, and this time there is only the gentle buzz of a fan that fills it.

Yukiko’s grip tightens around her, and Chie can’t help but lean her head against her wife’s shoulder.

Yukiko sighs, but says nothing.

Chie stares at the ceiling, and wonders what the buzzing is and why it seems so obnoxiously loud.

 “Chie…”

“I’m sorry. I just…” Chie focuses on one portion of the ceiling, “I don’t know how to put it into words very well.”

She feels Yukiko nod, and closes her eyes.

“I’m sorry. I don’t mean to be so difficult.”

“You’re not being difficult.”

“I am, though.”

Yukiko sighs again, and plants a gentle kiss on Chie’s cheek. “You’re not being difficult. Sometimes feelings are hard to process.”

“Do you think I’m a good person?”

“Hm? Of course.”

“I don’t feel like a good person.”

There’s a pause before Yukiko responds. “Why?”

“This guy we busted, he had a family. He had kids. And we took him away from them.”

“Was he a bad person?”

“I’m not sure. I don’t know.”

Yukiko shifts slightly. “Did he have a warrant or anything?”

“Of course. We’ve been trailing this guy for years.”

“So he was a criminal?”

“I don’t know.” It comes out snappier than Chie intended.

She sits up, removing herself from Yukiko’s arms, and shakes her head. “I don’t know. I don’t know. He wasn’t dangerous. He was providing for his family.  But we took him away anyway. His kid was crying, and it didn’t even matter. It was like he wasn’t even a human being.”

Yukiko doesn’t respond. Chie stares at the floor of the bathtub, not at all wanting to see the expression on her wife’s face.

“I joined the police force to protect people. But who am I even protecting?”

It takes a moment, but Chie hears the water splash, and is again met with Yukiko’s arms around her. She feels Yukiko rest her head against her shoulder, but doesn’t turn to look at her. “I don’t think anything is so black and white.”

Chie slumps, a little, and Yukiko continues. “You can’t help everyone. And no matter what you choose to do, there is always going to be two sides to the story. Sometimes you’ll be on the wrong one.”

Chie covers Yukiko’s arms with her own, and it’s about all she can do.

“Right and wrong are just ideas. Reality is messier. Technically, Adachi protected people. But his motives were terrible. There isn’t really a clear answer.”

Chie shudders at the mention of Adachi- she had tried to forget he had anything to do with the force. She never could.

“I can’t tell you what to do. Or how to feel about anything- and I would never want to.” Yukiko squeezes her tighter. “But I trust you, and I love you. I know you’ll figure things out. And I’m here to help you however I can.”

Chie nods as Yukiko kisses her cheek, then spins and returns it properly.

They sit for a moment in the silence before Chie speaks again.

“Let’s get out of here- the water’s cold and I’m getting all pruney.” She says as she gets up and helps a now-giggling Yukiko out of the bath.

As they leave the room, Chie notices that the buzzing is all but gone.

* * *

 

After the bath, their next stop is the bedroom, and Chie realizes just how exhausted she is.

Yukiko is in another room, taking care of something as Chie plops onto their bed.

She tries to think about right and wrong, but everything comes up in a blur. She doesn’t know. She may never know, never be able to define that line. But Yukiko will be next to her in the morning, and Chie will wake up and face a new day with new challenges then, too. This is definite. This she knows.

So she focuses on that, and when she closes her eyes, it is silence that lulls her to sleep.

* * *

 

**Author's Note:**

> Chie is referred to as both Satonaka and Amagi in this fic- since she is married to Yukiko, and the Amagi name is the prestigious one, I would think she would take the Amagi name. However, Dojima would have known her for years as Satonaka, so he would still call her that. So he calls her Satonaka, but the younger officers would refer to her as Amagi, if that makes sense. 
> 
> The title is taken from a poem by Sarah Kay.


End file.
